DH_INSTALLALTERNATIVES(1)

✨ NAME ✨

dh_installalternatives — bestie, this one installs declarative alternative rules 💖

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

dh_installalternatives [debhelper options]

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

okay so boom: dh_installalternatives is a debhelper program, and its whole job — its entire main character purpose — is parsing the declarative alternatives format and inserting the relevant maintscripts snippets so everything can interface with update-alternatives(1). no cap. that's the vibe. 🌈

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• debian/package.alternatives — here's what the format looks like, bestie, and yes this is a real example:

Name: editor
Link: /usr/bin/editor
Alternative: /usr/bin/vim.basic
Dependents:
  /usr/share/man/man1/editor.1.gz editor.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/vim.1.gz
  /usr/share/man/fr/man1/editor.1.gz editor.fr.1.gz /usr/share/man/fr/man1/vim.1.gz
  /usr/share/man/it/man1/editor.1.gz editor.it.1.gz /usr/share/man/it/man1/vim.1.gz
  /usr/share/man/pl/man1/editor.1.gz editor.pl.1.gz /usr/share/man/pl/man1/vim.1.gz
  /usr/share/man/ru/man1/editor.1.gz editor.ru.1.gz /usr/share/man/ru/man1/vim.1.gz
Priority: 50

The fields Link, Name, Alternative, and Priority are mandatory — like, you literally cannot skip them — and they correspond to the update-alternatives(1) --install parameters link, name, path, and priority respectively. 🫶

The Dependents field is optional and consists of one or more lines. Each non-empty line must contain exactly 3 space separated values that match (in order) the values passed to the --slave parameter for update-alternatives(1). count them. three. don't be out here making it four. 💀

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🍓 OPTIONS 🍓

• -n, --no-scripts — do not modify postinst/postrm/prerm scripts. hands off, periodt. 🙈

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

• debhelper(7)
• This program is a part of debhelper. 💜

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🧚 and that's the whole thing, bestie — go forth and let dh_installalternatives handle your alternatives like the icon it is 👑

mwah 💋 this page came from debhelper version 14.5ubuntu1, dated 2026-09-21 — slay, no notes ✨